I'd need a fairly detailed plan of who needs to be cleared out and what needs to be changed at grass roots before I wanted my team to miss the World Cup. Same with Scottish fans too I expect. We'll see what happens in the US.

eujin wrote:I'd need a fairly detailed plan of who needs to be cleared out and what needs to be changed at grass roots before I wanted my team to miss the World Cup. Same with Scottish fans too I expect. We'll see what happens in the US.

In the meantime the Investigative newshow "그것이 알고 싶다" is preparing an expose on the KFA. Anyone got any dirt to ship?

I made my way down to Gwangyang for the POSCO derby. Pohang didn't deserve to win 3-1. Their three Brazilians all play from deep midfield. Muralha looks particularly uncomfortable crossing his own halfway line. Wanderson is technically a full-back but is often ahead of Muralha. Lulinha is a dirty player, diving and moaning all the time. At one point he tried to pull Choi Hyo-jin's hand off and should have been booked more than once. They stepped things up a bit in the second half but the days of Denilson, Suttibo and Okayama are long gone at Pohang.

Pohang dominated possession in the first half, though Jeonnam did exactly the right thing and sat back to allow Pohang's Brazilian midfield-defenders to pass the ball harmlessly around near halfway without ever threatening. The youngster Lee Rae-jun started ahead of top scorer Yang Dong-hyun at centre-forward and was singularly ineffective. He was substituted after only 38 minutes. I understand giving younger players a shot in what is for Pohang a largely meaningless match, but taking them off before half-time is not going to help build their confidence, even if they do look a long way from K-League standard (which isn't much).

In contrast to Pohang's foreign contingent, Jeonnam's overseas players played exactly where you need them, creating urgency going forward and direction towards goal. Particularly the Hungarian Feczesin caught my eye. He deserves a move to a bigger club if he stays in Korea. Pohang should take a very serious look at him.

Jeonnam got a goal from a defensive mix-up between Bae Seul-gi and the Pohang keeper, Kang Hyong-mu. Pohang went ahead in the second half thanks to an own goal. Yang Dong-hyun hit the bar and had another sitter he should have put away, but I still felt Pohang were undeserving of the three points, largely because they looked very pedestrian and had too many simple mistakes.

The official crowd of 1565 looked about right from what I saw. That's a least one thing that has been sorted since my days living in Korea. The Jeonnam crowd did a decent effort of keeping up the atmosphere and the fans present were keen enough. A shame this wasn't really reflected on the pitch, apart from perhaps Jeonnam's Feczesin and Jugovic. Pohang don't look like they're going to be getting much better any time soon. A slow steady decline; they are more likely to be in the second tier before they're challenging in the ACL again.

I was going to go and watch Anyang vs Busan today but the thought of sitting in a largely empty track stadium watching two under-motivated teams play a match whose result had probably already been decided beforehand didn't motivate me enough to haul myself through several hours worth of Seoul traffic. Has Korean football lost its magic? I don't know, I've only been to one match and maybe my memories of the past are too rose-tinted. I did get to go on the team bus, wander down to the Pohang dressing room at half time and out on to the pitch at the end. Things like that would get you into a lot of trouble in Germany. And Germany is not short of people getting themselves into trouble at the football. Everyone in Korea, in Gwangyang at least, was busy enjoying a fun day out.

Jeonnam look like they're doing their best to help Gwangju stay in the top flight.. they've had a run of three consecutive home matches where they've conceded 11 in total - three to Pohang at the weekend, prior to that it was four at home to Gwangju and before that one four at home to Daegu. They're on a horrific run of form and Gwangju have done well to close the gap to just four points, particularly as I was doing my best to relegate Gwangju just a few posts ago.

That said, Gwangju seem to have figured out that not using their star summer signing Niall McGinn is their best route to survival. Could be that new boss Kim Hak-bum just doesn't fancy him though, by my reckoning McGinn has played just 162 minutes out of the last 900 minutes of Gwangju league action. He's had 12 minutes of international action since joining up with Gwangju, from what I can see his last full ninety minutes of competitive football action was back on May 17th when Aberdeen beat Rangers 2-1 at Ibrox.

eujin wrote:Jeonbuk won* the title with a 3-0 win over second-placed Jeju.

* During the course of the 2016 season Jeonbuk were deducted 9 poonts for match-fixing. Many people thought this punishment should have been held over to the start of the 2017 season in which case Jeonbuk would not have been champions this weekend.

Suwon, Ulsan and Seoul are still in the hunt for third place and an ACL place. Sangju, Incheon and Jeonnam are still trying to avoid the relegation play-off spot.